


Something's Changed

by SecondFromTheRight



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon, Episode: s02e19 Back to Normal, F/M, Iris' POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 19:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11698689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondFromTheRight/pseuds/SecondFromTheRight
Summary: That scene where Iris nurses an injured Barry and can't help checking him out.So okay, it was hardly optimum timing for her to indulge in a half naked Barry Allen, her best friend, and how it made her feel. But as she’d wrapped the bandages around him, as he’d held his sweater up for her, she couldn’t help noticing how he felt, how he looked.





	Something's Changed

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try another Iris POV fic and I always really loved this scene. When Iris is wrapping Barry's torso and totally checking him out. It's only a 5 second scene but I love it. It displays so much about where Iris is mentally and it's perfect parallel to early Season 1 scenes when Barry checks out Iris.
> 
> So, I wanted to try and explore it a little - how she might have felt in that moment. I'm not sure I succeeded, honestly.

Touching him wasn’t new. She’d touched him pretty much her entire life. It was something easy, natural by now. Comfortable and soothing. It hadn’t made her nervous before. It hadn’t made her look up to check if he’d noticed, it hadn’t made her want to blush and hide away her feelings.

And he hadn’t noticed. He didn't seem to have a clue of the effect seeing his bare chest and stomach had on her. Was it because he was too busy thinking about other things – there were a lot of things to think about it. Maybe she was being selfish. They still had to deal with Zoom, Caitlin was still missing, Barry was going through an identity crisis without his powers, driving himself too much, and they had an aging meta to deal with. So okay, it was hardly optimum timing for her to indulge in a half naked Barry Allen, her best friend, and how it made her feel. But as she’d wrapped the bandages around him, as he’d held his sweater up for her, she couldn’t help noticing how he felt, how he looked. His body so lean and toned. His stomach harder with muscle that she’d imagined. But he wasn’t cold; he was warm, his skin soft. She was well aware of the many moles Barry had. She’d counted them once or twice as a kid actually, making a game out of it, telling him he was special for having them when other kids made fun. She’d believed that too – Barry wasn’t boring; he had a story to tell and so did his body. He’d seemed to believe her in turn, finding comfort in her, finding confidence and identity in her high opinion of him.

But she hadn’t thought about brushing her fingers against them, smoothing over them. That desire was new. She wanted to explore the rest of them scattered over his body. As a kid she actually drew on him, practically playing dot to dot on his neck, thinking it was the best thing ever. She’d once been convinced she could explore star constellations through the natural markings on his skin (that had not worked, Barry ended up instead using plastic stars carefully placed widely across his bedroom floor as he taught her about Andromeda and Perseus, Orion and Scorpius. She hadn’t minded, either way Barry had been the answer to discovering something new.) Now she wanted to be soft, didn’t want to tarnish him at all. He was so pale and clean. She wanted to enjoy it – enjoy him, his body. Jesus, she was pretty sure she wanted to lick and kiss a dot to dot on him now.

Maybe it was just the new situation. She wasn’t a doctor, she wasn’t used to dealing with injured, half naked people, being that close to their skin, having them vulnerable in front of her. She didn’t have the disciplined, conditioned and professional dissociation that was typically required in those situations. Barry seemed to have the patient part of that down. Just letting her handle him and then getting back up as if nothing had happened. She supposed he was used to it. How many injuries had he had since becoming The Flash? Caitlin treated him over and over. She’d witnessed it herself. So it made sense for it not to be a moment for him, it was just part of things, didn’t mean anything.

She couldn’t feel that way though. She’d found herself staring at his crotch as he stood back up for godsake. She was a grown woman, she was supposed to have her hormones in check. There were other people in the room! Her dad included! And yet she’d found her eyes looking down at him, wondering. She was kind of ashamed of herself. There were more important things going on that wondering how her best friend looked under those jeans.

Get your head in the game, West, she told herself, hearing her bosses’ voices in her mind. There was stuff to deal with, a bad guy – or two – to stop. She tried to pay attention to Jessie and the others, tried to follow their biology and tech talk as they discussed how the meta was affected and ways they could attempt to locate Harry. She stepped forward from where she’d distanced herself behind them since leaving the medical room, trailing after Barry. She managed to keep up with the others for the most part, taking her mind off Barry – Barry and his body – and was even able to get involved a little, taking her cue from Barry as he gave his input, finishing his train of thought for him. That wasn’t exactly helpful in getting her mind off him, but this did feel like safer ground, more familiar ground. The back and forth of ideas of the group, the connection with Barry’s thinking – she understood that, it didn’t throw her off-guard.

Then the others left and she was alone with him again, completely this time. She felt cautious, which in turn felt so stupid. It was Barry. He was…he was home. You didn’t feel cautious in your home. But she remembered how she felt with him on the medical table in front of her, those nervous butterflies, the tension. How her hand moving across his abdomen gave her a low-down feeling, a dip of tension, of excitement. How she didn’t want him to get up yet so she could soothe his hurt properly. But he was standing staring at his suit, lost. Seeing that on him overtook how else she felt.

Still feeling a little awkward she walked over to him and nudged him, asking him if he was okay. And she listened. She’d always tried to listen to Barry as much as she could, tried to give him that outlet, that attention. He deserved it and throughout his life so many people had dismissed him and what he was saying. She never wanted to do that to him.

Then he started talking about she was the first person he’d ever saved, mentioned Eddie and the coma and when everything had changed, pulling her mind right back to the idea of her and Barry, of how she maybe felt about him, how he maybe still felt about her. Then he rounded it off by saying he’d saved her, that the first thing he’d done with his powers was to save her – that he’d at least known he could save her. He was so honest and earnest with her, so sweet and devoted, his voice clearly showing her how much it had meant to him, being able to save her. He was good, in every form and in every way; he was good. He was a hero, no matter what his super ability – or lack of. He was a hero. It wasn’t the speed that made him such, it was just Barry, who he was, who he’d always been. She tried to convey that to him, pushing her own feelings aside and focusing on reassuring him, trying to fix his upset. That was also a role that felt familiar for her, that she felt was important and that she wanted to get right – comforting him, encouraging him, getting him to believe he was special, all by himself. Whether it was his moles that she now couldn’t stop thinking about in a whole new way, or his loss of power, she would do everything she could to help him understand there wasn’t something less about him. Doing that for him was part of what made her Iris West.

**Author's Note:**

> It's corny but I used Andromeda and Perseus because Perseus was an honourable hero who saved Andromeda and instantly fell in love with her - and she loved him back. They also happily married and had kids.
> 
> So they seemed perfectly fitting for WestAllen when Barry is talking about how she was the first person he saved and to the image of kid Barry and Iris, her naturally curious about knowledge of something and him having that knowledge and excitedly wanting to share it with her.
> 
> And I used Orion and Scorpius because mostly they're commonly known, but also the idea that they can't really exist in the same space without fighting, sort of like like Barry and Thwane, in a way. Again, kind of corny.


End file.
